Republicans blocked Chuck Hagel’s nomination from moving forward this afternoon as President Obama’s pick for Defense secretary failed to clear a procedural vote in the Senate.

The cloture vote was to end debate on the Hagel nomination and move forward with a final vote. A 60-vote threshold was required.

The tally was 58-40, with one senator — Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) — voting present, and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) missing the vote.

“We need a secretary of Defense on the job,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on the floor after the vote. “There’s nothing that’s going to change in the next 10 days about the qualifications of Chuck Hagel.”

Republicans opposed to the Hagel nomination, including Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), expressed a willingness to allow a vote after the Presidents Day recess.

“Today’s vote is a vote to continue the debate over Chuck Hagel,” said Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). “It is premature to close off debate on a nominee who hasn’t responded to reasonable requests for information and to a White House who continues to stonewall.”

“The president deserves considerable latitude on appointing members of his cabinet and I have typically supported those nominees including those with whom I have significant policy disagreements,” Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said. “But Sen. Hagel’s shifting positions, questionable performance during the Senate confirmation process and disturbing record on some of the most important national security issues of the day concern me.”

At a gaggle with reporters earlier today aboard Air Force One, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the administration wanted Hagel to be confirmed in time for a defense ministerial meeting in Brussels next week.

“It does not send a favorable signal for Republicans in the United States Senate to delay a vote on the president’s nominee — a nominee who is a member of their own party — to be the Secretary of Defense. It’s difficult to explain to our allies exactly why that’s happening,” Earnest said.

“There is a clear majority in the United States Senate for Senator Hagel’s confirmation. These delaying tactics are unconscionable and they should end right away,” he added.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said he believes Obama should get some leeway with nominees — that’s why he voted for John Kerry’s nomination to the State Department.

“However, I also believe there are standards in both policy and background that go beyond mere disagreement and go to the suitability of the nominee to perform their job,” Paul said. “That is why I have placed a hold on the nomination of John Brennan to serve as director of the CIA until he answers the question of whether or not the President can kill American citizens through the drone strike program on U.S. soil.”

“That is also why I voted to not end debate on the Hagel nomination. I do not believe Sen. Hagel has adequately explained his activities and their financing since he left the Senate, and I believe this criteria is especially important when dealing with the revolving door between government and the private sector,” Paul added.

On a conference call today, Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) — who voted with Susan Collins (R-Maine), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to end debate move Hagel forward to a final vote — said he’s “not running around trying to bend people’s arm, but my hope is that we can move forward on a vote.”

“If the Democrats were doing this, we would be hollering that this was a filibuster, and probably did in the past,” Johanns said. “…And my hope is that whatever issues are out there, they can be resolved. He can move to a vote. This is now getting awfully important. Secretary Panetta clocks out today at noon. I just think it’s important to have a secretary of Defense in place.”

Bridget Johnson is a veteran journalist whose news articles and opinion columns have run in dozens of news outlets across the globe. Bridget first came to Washington to be online editor at The Hill, where she wrote The World from The Hill column on foreign policy. Previously she was an opinion writer and editorial board member at the Rocky Mountain News and nation/world news columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News.
She is an NPR contributor and has contributed to USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, Politico and more, and has myriad television and radio credits as a commentator. Bridget is Washington Editor for PJ Media.

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34 Comments, 16 Threads

Congratulations! Our party has now shown that they are completely in the thrall of the crazies. An historic vote, yeah! Approval of Congress is now at… zero? And who, pray tell, should be out next Secretary of War? The Swedish Chef (John Bolton)? Or how about Frank Gaffney? So depressing, a party that isn’t FOR anything, only AGAINST everything. God bless and go forward.

And your party is not the party of George Bush (both of them), Bob Dole, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, or Dwight Eisenhower. MY party is one of fiscal responsibility, what is your party about?b

Imagine including Bob Frikken Dole with Ronny. The only people who should love Dole are trial lawyers, as his parting gift to them, the ADA, continues to confound and confuse…and reap huge rewards for unscrupulous lawyers (are there any other kind?)
I guess they’re really scraping the bottom at media matters.

It’s funny that you try to mention Frank Gaffney as a too-extreme alternative, in that he is too extreme for most Republicans, because he would certainly do a better job as SecDef than Hagel! It would be preferable to have a Secretary of War who is FOR winning the f!#$ing war, and not (as Hagel is) FOR our enemies and AGAINST our allies.

It’s an absolute shame that the Senate’s Democrats are quiet on this simple matter and not as outraged as the Republicans are that Obama is passing them obvious enemy agents in Hagel and Chas Freeman for top war command posts in the middle of a war that we are losing. Which raises the question, who the hell is recommending these people? Who the hell is pretending to vet them? Who the hell is advising Obama on these picks? Where the hell are Woodward and Bernstein when the country needs them, or Isikoff or Packer or Hersh?

Do you honestly think the Defense Department will cease to run because nobody is sitting in the big chair. You think that any one of the many assistance to the Secretary of Defense can’t shine a seat with their ass as well as the officially titled person? There are bureaucratic as far as the eye can see that can continue to do next to nothing.

It’s funny that nobody is concerned with Dems are filibustering cabinet positions about someone being on the job. Unfortunately Americans have such tiny attention spans they don’t remember this being done. Maybe if Obama wanted someone in the seat, he shouldn’t have presented such a radical candidate.

If Hagel is stopped, we have to thank the new media, Brietbart and Free Beacon have been on the trail, here’s the latest:

“The United States must be prepared to act boldly and exploit opportunities to re-frame our relationship with Iran. Engagement should not be limited to government-to-government contact…but rather find new and imaginative ways to reach out to the Iranian people. Part of that initiative could be offering to re-open a consulate in Tehran…not formal diplomatic relations…but a Consulate…to help encourage and facilitate people-to-people exchange. All nations of Europe and most of our allies in the Middle East and Asia have diplomatic relations with Iran.”

Yeah, and not talking to Iran has been working SO well that we ought to just keep right on doing that?!? Do we think that we’re hurting their feeelings by not talking to them?!? Not talking to Iran is not an action that’s worthy of the world’s only superpower, it’s the actions of an angry child giving it’s parents the silent treatment. We always had relations with the Soviet Union, even at the height of the Cold War. How many young Americans died in Vietnam, yet, we have relations with them, today. Isn’t it about time that we grew up and stopped being so butthurt about an event (the Iran hostage crisis) that happened over 30 years ago?!?

Interesting comment from Tuesday, Feb. 12, by Jerry Boykin, vice-president at the Family Research Council: “Hagel has demonstrated some rather anti-Semitic tendencies in not being willing to stand with Israel.”

So, one is anti-Semitic unless one is behind Israel 110%? Frankly, I’d rather have a defense secretary who takes his marching orders from American citizens & Washington, and not from Jerusalem.

#2 reply by Art Chance: “….you didn’t vote for any of those people; you’re just a lefty troll.” How do you know he didn’t vote for any of them? For the record, I voted for Nixon (twice), Ford, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush and this past November, voted for the only conservative in the race, Gary Johnson. I was too young to vote for either Goldwater or Eisenhower, but gave some of my precious allowance money to the Goldwater campaign. So, deal with that!

Johnson was a conservative; Obama a distasteful known quantity; Romney, well, one had difficulty determining what Romney actually stood for. That’s the problem when one is a flip-flopper on many issues.

Sorry Steve, but you Gary Johnson voters, along with the Ron Paul supporters who didn’t vote, cost us another 4 years of Obama and his Marxist agenda. Romney wasn’t my first choice either, but I voted for him because the alternative was too terrible to think about. I know it feels better to vote for a candidate rather than against a candidate. However, America may never recover from this one.

Support for Israel is a pretty good litmus test. Why would you oppose them in the face of absolute annihilation unless you were for their enemies? So one shows they are either cowardly or dhimmis in the face of Islamic fascism and expansion by their willingness to throw a Western ally under the proverbial bus. I have no special love for Israel, but I understand the plight they are in, and since I absolutely oppose militant Islam, I support the nation of Israel it its fight against said enemies.

It isn’t any different than supporting our Western allies in the face of Soviet expansion. We didn’t take our marching orders from Bonn when we supported Germany as a front line ally against possible Soviet aggression, and we are not taking our marching orders from Jerusalem. If anything, we allow thousands of Israeli citizens to be killed by pleading with Israel to remain inactive against blatant aggression.

The former West Germany was never engaged in evicting people from their homes (Arabs) in order to make room for more settlements by those who want to restore “greater Samaria & Judea.” I do support the right of Israel to exist, to defend itself, and to have defensible borders. The “plight” that Israel is in is mitigated by the fact that Israel has the bomb. And, leaving Iran out of things for a moment, there has been an “Islamic bomb” for years, in Pakistan, and nothing has happened.

Hagel, a war hero, is as qualified to be defense secretary as Rumsfeld was, in my opinion, and deserves an up or down vote.

I’m not trying to pick on you Steve, but I disagree with you again. You put plight in parenthesis which I take to mean you don’t believe Israel is in danger. Here’s the cold, hard truth….If Arabs laid down their weapons there would be peace. If Israelis laid down their weapons they would be slaughtered. Unfortunately Obama, Brennan, Hagel, Kerry and Hildabeast don’t understand that…or don’t care. America now has an administration that sides with the enemy rather than our allies.

Please read what I said. I did not say anything about Israel laying down its weapons. It is also worth noting that the policies of the current government in Jerusalem do not enjoy universal support among Israeli citizens, as noted by the recent election there.

President Special has plans for a special meeting. Well well, deliema President Special? YOU should have thought about that? Not that any other comfirmed select has been one Whom soars red white and blue.

Let us not expect the confirmation pannel to vote against non-creditable individuals no no besides Mr. special needs someone right now, next week, Can’t wait. No No, this is why we have mcCain-O and Graham cracker O to get it done like good rinos.

Can you hear me AZ? Can you hear me SC? you have a RINO Control problem.

In Crony-Villa the crones waste much of their time on their thrones. Nothing but a bunch of Politcal theater.

Sorry to make a silly comment, but on every picture I have seen of him, even on MSM (liberal) websites, Hagel looks like he has been beaten badly and just came out of a dark forest he had been left all alone in as a kid. I mean he is mentally ill to me and prone to developp a kind of Stockholm syndrom, that is denying danger. If you see how Cathryn Ashton, head of the European diplomacy looks like, and what her story is, you understand that she has been an abused, cheated on, woman all her life and it’s no little wonder that she befriends so well with the Iranian spitting at her face.